Fish farming and the green gap
There's a bit of a spat going on in the activist community now over fish-farming.
It's a new arena for a familiar argument; should green groups engage with something that on balance they'd rather not have around, or should they simply campaign against it?
The immediate focus is WWF's recent announcement that it's co-founding a new organisation, the Aquaculture Stewardship Council, that will eventually develop global standards for an industry that at its worst could serve as a dictionary definition of the term "unsustainable".
WWF's rationale is that the industry is here to stay - the Earth's growing number of mouths needs it - so it's imperative to get involved with businesses and regulators and spread best practices across the world.
A coalition of other NGOs disagrees. "We believe that these attempts at certification are funded and industry driven," they say, arguing that the proposed sustainability standards endorse techniques that are inherently unsustainable, and that the concerns of local peoples and indigenous groups are being ignored.
We've seen similar argument played out over many issues, including the greenhouse gas emissions of energy companies and various aspects of farming.
But perhaps the best recent analogy is the palm oil industry, which WWF chooses to work with, not least through the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil - a body that Greenpeace dismisses as "little more than a greenwashing operation".
On aquaculture, it's an increasingly important argument; because as a major report just released by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) makes clear, the industry is set to spread into ever more waterways and supply more ever more food in the years to come.
The industry now provides almost half of the fish that we eat. And with just over half of the world's wild fisheries classed as "fully exploited" and a further 20% "depleted", it seems clear that if the coming extra billions of humans are to eat fish and other marine products at the same rate that we do now, the majority is going to have to come from aquaculture.
The FAO's State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture report also concludes that wild catches are likely to go down rather than up as the climate changes. Warming waters will push species from their natural environs, it suggests, perhaps separating fish from their habitual food or disrupting the breeding cycle; and ocean acidification also poses threats.
At its worst, aquaculture is an absolute bane; it pollutes, spreads disease into wild populations, and reduces the health of wild stocks through escapes and interbreeding. The natural defences of mangroves are cleared for shrimp ponds that quickly leave soils saline and barren, and fish that could feed poorer mouths are minced up to fatten the carnivorous species to which western palates seem umbilically attached.
At its best, though, it is a benign and placid business providing local employment and local nutrition, with minimal ecological impacts.
Regulators, environmental groups and scientists all have roles to play if the industry is to improve its overall performance.
Scientists can find vegetable-based substitute feeds for carnivorous fish (research that is well underway at the moment, and not before time, with fish farms consuming 85% of the fish oil produced globally).
In conjunction with business leaders, scientists can also look for ways to run the farms symbiotically, so the waste from one product becomes food for another - something that is already being developed, not least in China, which possesses by far the world's biggest aquaculture industry.
And environmental groups? They can play several roles, I would suggest; keeping regulators honest, consulting on ecological standards, and helping to shape the market so consumers become keener to eat species with a lighter environmental footprint.
Whether they can better achieve those ambitions from inside or outside of the tent is for each group to decide; and perhaps there's merit in having a bit of both.
Aquaculture isn't growing as fast as it was a decade ago - partly because of increasing pressure on China's waterways - and the FAO reckons governments will need to nurdle the industry along if its output is to increase in line with projected demand.
So there's clearly an opportunity to nurdle it in a direction that's environmentally as well as financially sound.
It's important that all the major players get it right. As a species, we will increasingly depend on the food that aquaculturists provide; but we also depend on them leaving behind lakes, rivers and seas that are fit for us and the rest of the Earth's inhabitants to use.
PS Click here for a pop-up picture gallery of future fish food.
I'm Richard Black, environment correspondent for the BBC News website. This is my take on what's happening to our shared environment as the human population grows and our use of nature's resources increases.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~46~RS~)
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Is there any way that the incorrect term "ocean acidification" can be corrected to "ocean neutralisation".
At the moment it seems like the phrase has been chosen for its scariness - even though it is actually totally incorrect (the oceans are alkaline so addition of extra CO2 will neutralise this somewhat). Given their chemistry there is absolutely no way that the oceans could become acidic even if we somehow managed to convert all of the fossil fuels in the world into CO2.
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I think we need to narrow the discussion somewhat here; despite its grand name, the WWF's Aquacuture Stewardship Council actually seems to focus on marine aquaculture rather than all aquaculture, including traditional freshwater systems.
Marine, and in particular open pen salmon aquaculture is a particularly "hot potato" here in BC, not so much because of the amount of fish oil and meal it consumes (although maybe it should) but the supposed effect on wild salmon populations. What doesnt help of course is that one of the largest players in BC is a Norwegian, largely state-owned company which can no longer expand and operate in its home country due to environmental regulations, so it now operates here (and in Scotland).
Other forms of aquaculture, including shellfish are also controversial but much more because of it limiting access to areas, rather than the resources it may or may not consume. Interestingly marine aquaculture in BC has a long "native" history here; in pre-historic times (which means here largely before say 1850) clams were extensively farmed by our coastal First Nations (Canadian indians to the rest of the world) so it is not entirely an industrialised world phenomenon.
And there is the traditional and very much sustainable traditional farm-based aquaculture, much of it in Asia but also in Eastern Europe and Israel, concentrating on "vegetarian" fish or at least those much lower in the food chain and having much less of an impact. Environmentally beneficial even..
Although salmon aquaculture utilizes about half of the 1.5-2 million tonnes of fish oil produced world wide annually, there are also 6-7 million tonnes of fish meal produced annually, much, or even the bulk of which goes to other animal feed, including chicken. So although without a doubt very important, (salmon) aquaculture is only part of the resource problem.
Also, if we are concerned with resource conservation , it would be interesting to see the figures for fish oil and fish meal "spent" on trout farming for instance, almost universally neglected in this discussion because it takes place in confined reservoirs and land-based farms, occupies the same place in the carnivorous fish food chain, is far more extensive than marine salmon farming and which is not bred so much for food but sport... And don't underestimate the 'take" of sport fishing; it is reliably estimated that up to one half of the annual wild salmon runs for instance fall prey to anglers, rather than commercial fishermen. Now add up the number of trout sport fishers..
I have no objections to an Aquaculture Stewardship Council, quite the opposite actually. But lets be clear here and make sure not all of "aquaculture" gets tarred with the same brush... nor is the Aquaculture Stewardship Council going to do much for anything else but (intensive)marine aquaculture.
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Boring_username, I've commented on this in a previous post.
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Congrats on a well-balanced overview of very "hot" topic. I think it is correct to focus on the big picture. When Jacques Cousteau encouraged us to "farm the seas" there were only about 3.5 billion people on the planet. Now there is close to 7 billion. As you mention in your article, the FAO reports that all major fisheries of wild stocks are either fully exploited or in decline. How can anyone argue that we need to more fully exploit wild fish? Wild Pacific Salmon in British Columbia are the classic case of a species fished too hard for too long with the further aggravation of having much of their natural spawning grounds permanently destroyed. If they were the only species in the world suffering severe declines, it might make some sense to pin this on aquaculture but unfortunately, they are just one more species. And I always find it amusing that proponents eating wild salmon over farmed salmon are the only ones who have adapted the strategy of eating a species to try and save it.
www.scuble.com
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Some of the best and cleanest food left on the planet comes from the sea. It is all "wild" - a term which may soon vanish from our collective vocabulary.
In our industrial age, with its plethora of competing interests, we have managed to produce an entirely unhealthy source of food. It has even been given a name:
'The Western Diet'.
In short, this is an industrial construct, and not really food at all.
How many of you have looked around lately? Do you see the obsesity, the high blood pressure, etc... - the dependence on drugs, both prescription and not?
I think we have proven ourselves, as a species, too immature to handle ecosystems, or even ourselves.
We have 'allowed' our numbers to soar, despite the biological certainity of the end result of any exponential rise in any species numbers.
Despite truly overwhelming concensus by the world's leading scientific organizations, we still 'debate' anthropogenic global warming, because we are too immature, too lazy to do the physics, too confortable now to see the future.
We have also grown cynical, and so believe nobody, rather than those we instinctively know to be true.
For those interested, I have a book that I think should be suggested reading for all doctors, all dieticians, all politicians, and all of the public.
Dr. Weston Price, a Cleveland dentist, and an amateur anthropologist, got tired of fixing teeth, and went to look for 'controls' - healthy people without tooth decay. He and his wife travelled the world for some eight or nine years, and he wrote a book, and then published it at his own expense.
To this day there is a foundation dedicated to Dr. Price and his findings, who continue to try and pass information along to a very sick populace. It turns out tooth decay was only the symptom of a very pervasive malady - malnutrition, industrial malnutrition.
"Nutrition and Physical Degeneration" is the name of this classic. It may be hard to find at your local library, but may be available at a nearby university, where I found my copy. It can be ordered, of course, through the foundation I mentioned above, and whose cyber-address I post below, "The Price-Pottenger Foundation":
http://www.ppnf.org/catalog/ppnf/price.htm
It is perhaps the single most important book I have ever read!
The reason I bring it up is becase of the subject matter before us on this post, i.e., aquaculture.
I am against aquaculture, at least for the indefinite future, until we have demonstrated some maturity as a species.
I am easily convinced by results, and like all of us, I suppose, too easily swayed by rhetoric and so called reason. We have reasoned our way to the brink of ecological collapse.
Let's see if we can fish sustainably first, and make of the oceans a global commons.
See if we can do that without devastating the oceans any more than we already have.
- From Calgary -
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Too many jobsworths trying to justify their livelihoods by inventing catastrophic global scenarios based on half truths/incorrect scientific predictions.
Show a picture of a diseased salmon and voila! all farm salmon are poisonous/causing global warming/melting the polar icecaps.
Remember the Al Gore picture of a lonely polar bear on the last remaining piece of ice? Actually shot from a summer tourist boat and no mention of the fact Polar Bears regularly swim tens of miles for their next meal.
All this Green hysteria is to gather funds that principally pay the wages/pensions of those who have taken well intention charities and turned them into another yet business that uses emotional scenarios to deceive/delude the public into funding ventures that do not usually exist as they are portrayed.
A question.
How did mankind survive a temperature rise, that today would apparently herald tipping points/total disaster/sea level city swamping/polar bear extinction, back in the Medieval Warm Period?
Do not pay any money to any Carbon Offset scheme as it is a scam and nothing more.
As was Fools Gold/Tulip Trading/The South Sea Bubble - google any of those and see where global warming is heading, along with Witches, Dragons and Papal Indulgences.
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To 'globalcraptrap' (#6)
The name you have chosen for yourself is instructive.
Please see my post #68 in the previous
"High Quality Climate".
I should then appreciate it if you would, in writing, via another post here, tell us what you think of Jacques Cousteau, Carl Sagan, and Jim Hansen, and their views on global warming and the devastation we have wrought upon our home planet. Perhaps you could comment on their delusional state of mind, with examples?
Just so we can be clear on how far your cynicism will take you.
Perhaps you could also enlighten us as to how you arrived at your world view, and whether you have read, for example, any of Carl Sagan's or Jacques Cousteau's books, or any of Jim Hansen's many publications, available for free download at his website?
Here is Dr. Hansen's website:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/
It's a form of honesty, after all, to let us know the sources of your views.
- From Calgary -
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Interesting article by a scientist trying to publish an article on water vapour and the trends of humidity in the middle and upper troposphere.
The article was rejected. This is the story of why it was rejected.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=5416#more-5416
The original paper is a pdf but available via this link:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/?k=paltridge+arking+pook
or html here:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/m2054qq6126802g8/fulltext.html
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manysummits said in part about my choice of name...
"The name you have chosen for yourself is instructive."
As yours is regarding the validity of man made global warming and the wasted time and money and CO2 in politicians attending "many summits" with absolutely no effect on the world's climate whatsoever. Just the taxpayers pocket.
And you seriously think Hansen is credible? Or Mann, or Al Gore?????
Give a scientist a grant that requires adherence to a politico-scientific scam and you will find many volunteers ready to massage results to get the money. Fortunately there are many scientists who would not prostitute their academic status. I use their sources to make my judgement. Do not include the 3 names I mentioned in the previous paragraph, whether they have Oscars or Nobel Prizes.......
I keep Occam's Razor handy btw. Amazing how the Alarmists have such convoluted solutions and the skeptics much simpler ones.
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A more creative and integrated approach would be a good way forward. I am impressed by the work being done by Carl Hodges and the Seawater Foundation:
http://www.seawaterfoundation.org/newSite/toc.htm
(featured in the last green issue of Vanity Fair:
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/04/hodges200704 )
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To 'globalcraptrap' (#9)
The answer to your question, do I find James Hansen, or Mann, or Al Gore credible?
Yes, emphatically, to James Hansen and Al Gore, Mann I have never read or researched.
I see that you have not deigned to answer the questions I asked you in post #7. I wonder why you haven't?
I point this out, and I respond to cynics like yourself, because I am fairly sure there are many who read these comments, and I trust their judgement.
I do not expect to convince you, nor do I understand your motives or your arguments, which are not really arguments, rather they are rants.
These blogs spur me personally to research in depth, and to pass along a little of what I learn to those same silent readers, so that they might possibly learn something new. This happens to me all the time.
We seem to be 'off topic', as this post by Richard Black is about aquaculture, but all these topics are intimately related anyway.
Have you read Al Gore's books, "Earth in the Balance", or "Assault on Reason", or, for that matter, "An Inconvenient Truth"?
I have (only a few chapters in "Assault on Reason").
Have you read any of Dr. Hansen's research articles, free for download at his website (see post #7), or the new book about him, "Censoring Science", by Mark Bowen, himself a Ph.D. in physics from M.I.T.?
I have.
You say you have your own sources. Fine - we're all ears?? I'd like to know what your sources are, and perhaps a few words from you as to why we should access them? The United States National Academy of Sciences happens to think a lot of Dr. Hansen (he is a member).
For your information:
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." (Wikipedia)
It is also widely regarded as one of the most prestigious scientific bodies in the world.
Michael E. Mann, climatologist, I presume you are referring to?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Mann_(scientist)
The anthropogenic global warming skeptics out there, that is, the legitimate ones, seem to presume that climatology and the hockey stick graph are the province of one or a few men, and that just recently, and are somehow fundamental to this whole debate on global warming and its causes.
So you look for data errors, or perhaps legitimate mistakes, and think you have found out something important, without realizing that this is the way science has always self-corrected itself.
I have been following science all my life, in a variety of disciplines, and I can assure you the pursuit of basic knowledge on carbon dioxide , or the evolution of the atmosphere of Earth and the other planets and moons in our solar system, is in no way dependent upon the researches of a few men, but has a long history, predating Michael Mann's date of birth in 1965, and is in fact the collaborative work of literally thousands of scientists in fields as diverse as nuclear physics, astronomy, chemistry, geology, oceanography, biology and paleontology, archaeology and paleoanthropology, and on and on...
I don't actually expect that the majority of the public will all of a sudden give up the habits of a lifetime and begin doing research of the type that many people like me enjoy so much.
But I do expect that all of us, confronted by what we have only recently come to realize is a clear and present danger, I do expect that we will do our duty as citizens and educate ourselves enough to decide who to believe.
- From western Canada - Calgary -
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@manysummits
Off topic indeed.
However, you mention NAS and a few blogs back, I mentioned the NAS report that had agreed with Wegman in saying the Hockey Stick was broke.
You mentioned "disinformation" and I asked why you considered the NAS report to be disinformation.
You didn't answer.
Could I ask again why you think the NAS report is disinformation, please? And do you consider the NAS conclusion that current temperatures are higher only for the last 400 years to be incorrect?
PS no doubt when reading Al Gore's "Earth in the Balance" you would have come across Al's statement that the MWP existed - An Inconvenient Truth perhaps?
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manysummits are you not falling into the trap of regarding the science of 'Global Warming' as settled?
Al Gore lied [and was proven to have done so in the UK Court]
Hansen 'adjusts' his data to suit his mania for blaming CO2 as a poison/pollutant.
Michael Mann was found guilty of massaging his data to produce the infamous Hockey Stick by his peers and has absolutely no credibility, other than with his Green sycophants.
How arrogant to assume mankind can control this planet. We can stop 3% of CO2 production and watch the human race self destruct!
I'm all for a clean environment but not via Carbon denial.
I have to say that if you find Al Gore and James Hansen 'emphatically' credible then you need to get your prescription changed - immediately.
The crime is that trillions of dollars/pounds/punts/pesetas will be thrown at
a disaster that is not going to happen. Scare stories by Green media/politicians can only go on for so long, then reality will have to take over. History is a good way of looking at the future. What has prevailed during mankind's short tenure on this planet? We have adapted to whatever climate conditions Mother Nature has given us. Mainly to retreat from the cold climates and breed like rabbits in the warm ones. Long before coal was used or the wheel was invented.
Warm and well wrapped up in West Surrey -UK
PS Still looking for the "clear and present danger!" But not holding my breath [including 4% CO2].
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To CuckooToo (#12):
Sorry I can't answer each of your questions individually - time and energy are limited.
You seem to think the existence of the Midieval Warm Period in some way supports your contention that anthropogenic global warming does not exist, because the climate has warmed all by itself in times past.
Would that be an accurate statement??
I must have read a score of books which discuss the Midieval Warm Period. Books on paleoanthropology and archaeology for example, history books, for another.
Here is a link to Wikipedia on the Midieval Warm Period. Please note the existence of what you call the hockey stick on the graph on Wikipedia's page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period
Here is a link to a beautiful article by Richard B. Alley, glaciologist extraordinaire, first winner of the Louis Agassiz Award, member of The National Academy of Sciences, etc.. - in fact, why don't I post a link to his biography, from Wikipedia, also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Alley
The Scientific American article I refer to is in its November, 2004 edition, and its title is:
"Abrupt Climate Change".
The link I found is a pdf, and so will be disallowed by the moderators. Here's how to get it, in color, with graphs:
Google search: abrupt climate change, Alley, scientific american, 2004
Click on the pdf article with partial address as follows: www.ecojusticecollaborative.org
Now, look at his graphs of the past fifteen thousand years. You will note your Midieval Warm Period clearly documented, along with a number of others.
Its existence is not news CuckooToo, nor is it disputed that climate has changed without our intervention in the past.
Look again at those graphs in the Scientific American article. Do you see the Younger Dryas, whose magnitude of change dwarf those of the midieval warm period or the Little Ice Age - all natural.
The scientists of the world know all of this CuckooToo, it is our bread and butter. You are not telling us anything new, it is the scientists who discovered these abrupt climate changes in the past, and the same scientists who are doing their level best to tell you that this time the forcing is different - it is us!!!!!!!!!!!!!
To Globalcraptrap too:
The CO2 which we are releasing into the atmosphere, with its consequent increase in global temperature, is only the tip of the iceberg. Much of the CO2 and greenhouse warmth is being absorbed into the oceans, particularlly the upper seven hundred meters, and it will then make its way down into the oceans depths. This takes time. Then it will heat the atmosphere through the hydrologic cycle. These changes are "in the pipeline", as James Hansen would put it, and have yet to make their impact.
At the same time, the oceans pH is decreasing, by some twenty percent already, with the consequent threat to the base of the food chain. The most visible of these ocean changes are the bleaching of the coral reefs around the world, through a combination of increased ocean warmth, lowered pH, and other manmade pollutants.
Have to go to work, more later.
- Fro Calgary -
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globalclaptrap writes
"How did mankind survive a temperature rise, that today would apparently herald tipping points/total disaster/sea level city swamping/polar bear extinction, back in the Medieval Warm Period"
Well global.... youve certainly nailed your colours to the mast.
In answer to your question i would guess firstly there were a lot less of us on the planet at the time.
Scondly this warming period coincided with the black death in the Uk so that would mitigate any overpopulation effects caused by a degenerating environment,in fact the spread of the disease may well have been helped by same warming effects.
If you were to come down to Kent, you would see the devestating affects on communities due to climate change, sea born ports now land locked such as winchelsea. Iwould suggest that multipliedon a global scale the effects would have been pretty bad.
Multiply these same effects by the increase in population since the medieval period and i would say the outcome will be devastating, wether man made or natural.
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Manysummits
I’m pleased that you agree the MWP existed and can I assume that you also agree that Climate Audit, Wegman and the NAS report was not disinformation?
“You seem to think the existence of the Midieval Warm Period in some way supports your contention that anthropogenic global warming does not exist, because the climate has warmed all by itself in times past. Would that be an accurate statement??”
No of course not, but the fact that the MWP existed in relative recent times is your starter for 10.
“The scientists of the world know all of this CuckooToo, it is our bread and butter.”
The climate scientists seem to have “forgotten” the MWP according to the Hockey Sticks and that is the eye candy that catches most people, so I think it is a little disingenuous on the part of climate scientists to dismiss the MWP.
I posted here http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2009/02/highquality_climate.html#comment62 my thoughts on climate change, so now we have agreement on the MWP (point 1 in my post), could I turn to CO2 as a driver of climate? I’m not going to pretend that that I have come up with this all on my own
As I am sure you know, CO2 is not a physical barrier to heat and it doesn’t blanket the earth as depicted in most illustrations – if CO2 was actually in the atmosphere in that manner then it would be at our feet, because it is heavier than air. The reason CO2 isn’t at our feet is because wind, convection etc mixes up the air and distributes the various gases.
There is ample evidence provided by Jarowoski and Beck, which tells us that the pre-industrial level of CO2 (280ppm) is actually a false measurement, but I’ll put that to one side.
CO2, however, is not the most important player in greenhouse gas effect. The most important players are water vapour and clouds. Water in the form of vapour and clouds accounts for 90-95% of the greenhouse effect (Freidenreich and Ramaswamy, “Solar Radiation Absorption by Carbon Dioxide, Overlap with Water, and a Parameterization for General Circulation Models,”), with remainder being CO2, nitrous oxide, methane, ozone and other minor greenhouse gases. Changes in the RH of water between 1.3 to 4% has the equivalent effect of doubling CO2 (1C rise). All of the above is, however, in the troposphere, which is the bit that effects our weather the most (the stratosphere is about 80% CO2, 20% water vapour, but this makes little difference to the greenhouse effect).
Now, according to the IPCC, man contributes about 3.4% of carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere annually, the rest of it is all. Half our estimated emissions fail to accumulate in the atmosphere, "disappearing" into sinks as yet undetermined. Mans' total accumulated carbon contribution could account for perhaps a quarter of the total non-water greenhouse gases (that is, accounting for all the increase since the Industrial Revolution regardless of source and irrespective of whether warming from any cause might result in an increase in natural emission to atmosphere -- we're simply claiming the lot as anthropogenic or human-caused here). Let’s say water vapor accounts for about 70% and clouds (mostly water droplets) accounts for another 20%, thus water in it's various forms is 90% of the total greenhouse effect, leaving 10% for non-water greenhouse . Of this remaining 10%, mainly atmospheric carbon, humans might be responsible for 25% of the total accumulated atmospheric carbon, meaning 0.25 x 0.1 = 0.025 x 100 = 2.5% of the total greenhouse effect.
There we are I hear you say. Proof! But the temperature effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide is logarithmic which means there is a diminishing response as you keep adding more. To double the pre-Industrial Revolution warming from CO2 alone would require about 90,000ppm (9%) but by then, we would all be dead anyway, because CO2 over 6000 ppm is toxic
We then move onto climate sensitivity, which is the big unknown and assumed to be positive, however, the true climate sensitivity remains uncertain, because it is difficult to model the effect of feedback. In particular, the magnitude and even the sign of the feedback can differ according to the composition, thickness, and altitude of the clouds, and some studies have suggested a lesser climate sensitivity. Since the known physics of carbon dioxide when modeled with the recorded temperature changes do not produce sufficient swings to match the recorded 20th Century temperature trends a multiplier of 2.5 is used – climate sensitivity.
Apologies for this being quite long, it’s not like me to rabbit on – I have a preference to point people in the right direction, but sometimes, manysummits, it does appear that you read the links.
Finally, could I suggest that you read some of the more sceptic views on AGW to get a more balanced view? As I’ve said before, I do read the pro-AGW, because I really am prepared to change my mine if the evidence points in that direction
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@Thegrimcrim
Winchelsea, does that have a port?
devasting affects of climate change?
Could you give examples please?
thanks
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To: Thegrimcrim and CuckooToo
I left England for the US over 10yrs ago. I remember Winchelsea as a beautiful little town on the East Sussex coast where marsh land met the sea.
If my history is correct it had a port back in the 13th century. The whole village, and the port, was destroyed by violent storms in the 14th century and they moved the village to a hill site a little inland. Since then the marsh land and sea have been allowed to do their own thing and it's a bit like a nature reserve which the locals are very proud to possess and maintain as such.
I'm not a scientist but did get as far as 'A' levels. Reading MANYSUMMITS talk about heat going down into the oceans. If I remember (I'd be pleased to be enlightened) hotter water rises to the surface. So the hottest water will be on the surface which has shown no particular move in temperature in the last few years. What I always find quirky is that the maximum density of water is at 4degrees at which point it starts to rise. So ice then floats. Amazing bit of nature!!! So the lower ocean will hold pretty steady at 4degrees. Pretty chilly all the same.
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To Richard Black:
First of all I want to aploogize for wandering so far off topic.
Perhaps it would be better to discuss climate change under previous posts?
Second, I want to thank you for providing us with this forum. I am finding it strangely enlightening, that is, when I am not exasperated by some of the discussions.
I am beginning to think of your forum as a kind of cyber-campfire, around which any and all may gather, to listen or discuss the business of the tribe. The late Carl Sagan and the very much alive Al Gore have spoken of, respectively, 'the dumbing down of America', and 'the assault on reason'.
It seems to me that your rather commodious cyper-teepee may be doing something to 'smarten us up', a trend which would justify, more than justify, this website!
Third, I was wondering if I, or perhaps we, might make a suggestion or two for future topics?
Musing over the state of the Environment, and doing some fairly high level reading of original research articles, I am becoming younger at heart, something I didn't expect. I also keep wondering, what are we really going to do, or more precisely, what do I personally think we should do?
I keep coming up with what seems to be popularly called the 'elephant in the room', population!
This would be my number one choice for a topic - population dynamics - what is possible - how does it fit in with everything else, i.e., nuclear energy, wind power, aquaculture, water, etc... How important is it, really?? And is it realistic to reverse the trend? How would this impact the economy, and on and on.
Wishing you a good weekend,
- From Calgary -
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To tinjenvey (#18)
Re 'heat going down into the oceans', and four degree water:
Good questions!
I'll post a link below which should fully answer the 'heat' question.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulation
And I'll post another which should fully answer the floating part. See "Chemical and Physical Properties' in the link below - it's actually the expansion following the maximum density which then reduces density to below that of liquid water.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water#Chemical_and_physical_properties
- From Calgary -
PS: Not far from where I live, actually just an hour's drive to the west, the 'type section' of the Exshaw shale can be easily viewed in a creekbed in the mountains.
The shale is jet black, and full of pyrite (fool's gold). Just below it is a grey crystalline limestone, full of life and fossils, unlike the black dead zone just above it, the Exshaw. The transition is extremely sharp.
The Exshaw is an example of an anoxic ocean bottom, probably something like a 'Canfield' ocean (named after Donald Canfield). Here the ocean is not mixed, i.e., not circulating oxygen to the bottom.
Mixed ocean - aerobic life
Unmixed ocean - death to oxygen lovers, good news for anaerobic microbes, some of which produce the highly lethal hydrogen sulphide gas. Lethal at ten parts per million, if I remember correctly.
The paleontologist Peter Ward, and others, fear that were we to raise CO2 levels high enough, to say over a thousand parts per million, we might initiate something like a stratified or hypoxic ocean. This is speculative, but possible.
We really don't want to do this, or even get close to doing this.
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Manysummits:
Thanks for the links in #20. A good review of the effects of salinity in the oceans.
Nice suggestion in #19 on the cyber-campfire but can't get head around singing Kumbaya to my computer screen!!! Just not the same as a real fire in the middle of no-where. Although, on the positive side we would not be polluting the atmosphere with as much CO2:).
Cheers.......
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Addition to my post #18:
When I wrote this I did a quick search for Winchelsea being a something I only vaguely remebered as a "sink" port. I could not find any reference and I have just asked my wife and she said it was a "Cinque" port. LOL!!
Something to share around our campfire.
Cheers..........
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To timjenvey and all our campfire cousins:
Pre-Socratic Philosophy - the original 'sophists' of Greece:
"What moves a Greek warrior to deeds of heroism, is not a sense of duty as we understand it - duty towards others: it is rather duty towards himself. He strives after that which we translate 'virtue' but is in Greek arete, 'excellence'...
Arete implies a respect for the wholeness or oneness of life, and a consequent dislike of specialization. It implies a contempt for effeciency - or rather a much higher idea of efficiency, an efficiency which exists not in one department of life but in life itself."
- from "The Greeks", H.D.F. Kitto
- in Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the
Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
I thought this view of life appropriate for a discussion of fish farming and the sea, and for an Environmental website, especially on this Sunday morning.
And I thought also to remind myself why we write here. It's about how we proceed from this point on, isn't it?
I cannot say whether fish farming is utlimately a good or a bad idea, I have only an opinion.
You know, I spoke of NASA's former mission statement in another post, but it resonates here too, doesn't it?:
"To understand and protect our home planet."
Those are words to ring down the ages, aren't they?
Perhaps, since NASA has abandoned it, we might adopt this as the unofficial motto of this website? What do you think Richard??
My wife sent me a video this morning, which I thought addresses the philosophical mindset which will ultimately determine our future. Perhaps this will be allowed by the moderators?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7cylfQtkDg&feature=related
It is a Native American video on the world and how we treat it.
If we do not learn to treat each other and our planet with more respect, I think we will pay a heavy price.
- From Calgary -
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"It's the economy, stupid."
- James Carville, 1992 election campaign of
Bill Clinton.
2009: "It's the ocean, Earth Watch!"
One of the key articles which induced me to start writing here at 'Earth Watch' was the multipage "A Sea Change" series in the popular magazine "Discover" , July 2008.(www.discovermagazine.com)
I followed up and have before me, as I write, Ken Caldeira and Michael Wickett's original article, "Anthropogenic carbon and ocean pH", ("Nature", vol 425, 25 September 2003.)
This is apparently where the term 'ocean acidification' entered the scientific literature.
And I have the James Zachos article, "An early Cenozoic perspective on greenhousae warming and carbon-cycle dynamics", ("Nature," vol 451, 17 January 2008), which is mentioned indirectly in the "Discover" article and where, along with Ken Caldeira's article, much of the meat for the article was presumably taken.
I did my own calculations on ocean pH changes, and confirmed to my satisfaction that we have not only changed the chemistry of the atmosphere, we have significantly altered the chemistry of the entire (expletive) world ocean!
And so I blog.
The book I am beginning today is hot off the press, Alanna Mitchell's "Sea Sick - The Global Ocean in Crisis" (2009).
This post by Richard Black, "Fish Farming and the Green Gap", is about the ocean, in the final analysis.
In a sense, we're beginning to 'farm' the sea, commerially, for reasons which may be uncannily similar to the reasons we first began tilling the soil.
1) We hunted the easy prey to near extinction.
2) The climate changed.
More later.
- Trying to understand and protect our home planet - (from Calgary)
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